Mommy of all trades turned tech writer.

an ode to hotels

We love hotels! It’s hard to imagine who doesn’t, really. You arrive to a freshly made bed and (assumed) spotless tub. When you leave for the day and come back, everything’s cleaned up for you. The pillows and covers are like heavenly soft marshmallows, and when you hang a sign on the door, no one bothers you.

We love hotels.

Dani and Stella, as soon as they get in, unplug the phone and start to make pretend calls on it. It’s hard to pry the Gideons bible out of Stella’s hands before she rips pages out of it. There’s satellite TV with tons of current movies to watch (though we never, ever end up seeing one), room service (which we’ve never ordered), and wake up calls to be arranged (that never get arranged, because with experience I’ve learned to trust only myself to get up promptly in the mornings).

We love hotels.

You head downstairs in the morning, having freshly rolled out of bed in our pantulog (pajamas), so succinctly our style, and grab some light breakfast. There’s coffee which is mandatory for us parents, oatmeal which is mandatory for Stella, who eats nothing else, and hard-boiled eggs for Dani, who eats only the whites and always asks for more (guess who gets the extra cholesterol hit because I don’t waste yolk).

We love hotels.

When it’s the night before checkout, it’s time to pack up. We must peek in every drawer, under each nightstand and couch cushion, and in the crevices of the bedposts to make sure the kids haven’t dropped or hidden anything valuable. There’s hair in the tub, nubs of toothpaste in the sink basin, and scrunched-up covers on the bed and strewn on the floor. Tomorrow, we must leave this wonderful abode. Where we’re going, no one is going to clean up our messes, pay for satellite television stations, or have breakfast hot and ready when we decide to wake up. It’s time to re-welcome reality and it bites!